I’ve run into this a couple times recently after clients have been migrated to Office 365. Office 365 by default sends messages in the Transport Neutral Encapsulation Format (TNEF) format. This is a rich text format and some email servers aren’t able to interpret it, and will therefore replace attachments with winmail.dat files (very common with clients on Macs). The fix is to use PowerShell to change disable TNEF. There is a TechNet article that shows you how to disable TNEF for when sending to specific domains or email addresses, but in my opinion that’s not acceptable for a client because they will need to contact us to have it changed every single time they encounter someone who cannot receive attachments from them. The fix is to connect to Office 365 via PowerShell and then do one of the following…

The change does not take immediately. I have not seen it documented anywhere, but I do know it doesn’t take place immediately. I had a client test this right after I made the change and it didn’t work, so I had them try again in the morning and it worked. I would guess at somewhere between 15 minutes and a few hours.

We’ve also run into some issues recently where users have been receiving winmail.dat attachments. This is usually caused in cases where the client has the SMTP proxy enabled on their WatchGuard. By default, the SMTP proxy strips some of the headers out of the email that identify it as a Rich Text Formatted email. If the email client does not have the header information needed to interpret the winmail.dat attachment, the email client cannot display the proper formatting of the email, and incorrectly displays the attachment as a winmail.dat file. To resolve, do the following…

In the Pattern text box, type each of these patterns and click Add to add them to the Rules list.

X-MS-Has-Attach:*

X-MS-TNEF-Correlator:*

X-MimeOLE:*

From the If matched drop-down list, select Allow.

From the Categories tree, select Content Types.

In the Pattern text box, type application/ms-tnef and click Add.
The pattern appears in the Rules list.

From the If matched drop-down list, select Allow.

From the Categories tree, select Filenames.

In the Pattern text box, type winmail.dat and click Remove.
The winmail.dat pattern is removed from the Rules list.

From the None matched drop-down list, select Allow.

Now, having said that, we had a client *not* using the SMTP proxy have a similar issue. This client has Securence for SPAM filtering and there is a feature you can enable within Securence that attempts to extract the contents of Winmail.dat when necessary. To enable, go to Settings -> Filters -> Winmail.dat Extraction.

(shamelessly ripped from an email from ChrisV, who rules.. thanks, man!)

On this day in 1989, British computer scientist Tim Berners-Lee presented to CERN management a proposal for a “universal linked information system” called Mesh, meant to help staff at the Swiss research center coordinate their work. Today, what we now know as the World Wide Web turns 25. Berners-Lee gave several interviews for the occasion. Looking back on his creation, he told CNet he’s glad the Web has developed as a “non-national” entity but deplores that most people on the Web still stick to their own cultures and their own ways, using the technology to reinforce their biases rather than open their world:

“I’d like it if developers on the Web could tackle the question of how to make Web sites that actually make us more friendly to people we don’t know so well,” he said.

People are always asking me which time server to use. Here’s the list of time servers hosted by the NIST. You *should* use time.nist.gov, in order to let them round-robin your requests across all of their servers, for load-balancing purposes.

Finally, I can use Windows 8 without feeling like I’m trying to work from a smart phone.
Microsoft, stop forcing the results of your focus groups on me, and stop screwing around with UI dev. You’re not helping. At all. I don’t care what the study says.
I understand the whole touch-screen thing, there’s still no excuse for your assumption that I’m giving up my mouse because you want me to.
Knock it off. For the rest of you stuck with Windows 8, download and install this. You’re welcome. ;)

Michael Lucas has done it again. In documenting arguably one of the driest topics on the planet, Mr. Lucas manages to add fun, trivia, and extremely useful knowledge of the OpenBSD team’s latest OS offering to an already excellent book. I read the first one 10 years ago or so, and this one is even better. The updated information on ProPolice, W^X, and the new PF features makes this book a no-brainer for *any* UNIX admin looking to add some extra security to his network, as well as a hobbyist who may be thinking of learning the ways of the shell.
As far as I’m concerned, chapters 21 and 22 were well worth the purchase price alone. If ANY member of the Princeton Area OpenBSD User’s Group would like to read this book, let me know, and I can get you a copy. My only request is that you post what you think of the book on this thread, so the fine folks at No Starch Press can see it, as they were kind enough to get us this advanced copy!

The general gist of the message is that this attack will be in retaliation for war crimes committed by the USA against Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan.
The attack is supposedly to “wipe the US government off the cyber map” and is being organized from a nation (according to Wikipedia) known for lots of not-so-good stuff:

## From Wikipedia ##
The government of Mauritania was overthrown on 6 August 2008, in a military coup d’etat led by General Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz. On 16 April 2009, General Aziz resigned from the military to run for president in the 19 July elections, which he won. In Mauritania about 20% of the population live on less than US$1.25 per day. Slavery in Mauritania has been called a major human rights issue as well as female genital mutilation, child labor, and human trafficking.
##

According to the FBI, Open Source reporting claims that their previous attempt to “wipe Israel off the cyber map” was a total failure, with little to no impact.

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